


Future Cure

by fleurlb



Category: The Curse - Josh Ritter (Song)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 16:19:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4066531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurlb/pseuds/fleurlb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A future iteration of an ancient curse</p>
            </blockquote>





	Future Cure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pocketmouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketmouse/gifts).



> Many thanks to pocketmouse for the opportunity to write far outside my comfort zone. Any mistakes are my own.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing here and am only borrowing a couple of Josh Ritter's remarkable characters for a little while. I'll put them back, mostly unscathed.

When her dried fig of a heart stopped beating, the museum curator wrapped her in the finest silk and gently placed her in a custom-built sarcophagus with ancient markings that told her tale. A sign in 4 modern languages was affixed to the glass in front of the sarcophagus, and no one dared crack the stone lid for fear of the curse.

The museum itself was ancient with grand halls and 40-foot pillars. When the troubles eventually came, most everything of value was taken from the museum, carried off by frightened people who needed something to bargain with or by children who wanted a trinket to remember a time they never knew. The porcelain sinks and copper pipes were taken by crafty thieves with an eye for how to survive. And finally, the dinosaur femurs, taller than a grown man, were taken to use as battering rams to escape from the now dangerous city.

But the sarcophagus remained behind, not because of the cautionary tale that was still visible on the glass, but because its hefty weight and awkward size guaranteed that no one could move it in these days after all the fuel had long ago run out. 

So she waited in her cold tomb, as dust drifted around her and the glass shattered and broke in the strong winds that rampaged through the museum now that the doors were gone. The roof caved in and eventually the upper floors of the museum gave way until she was was buried under miles of stone. 

Time means nothing to her, but still it passes slowly, more slowly than anyone could ever imagine, each second seeming like ten years, and she's quite sure that she will be forever caught under stone. Thousands and thousands of years feels like multiple eternities, but all she can do is wait and sleep.

When she awakes, all she can see is her own ruined face, reflected in a shiny surface, but she falls in love with the strong muscles that ease her up and carry her out, like a bride over the threshold, through the ruined museum and onto a ship that her wildest imagination could not have conjured. She does not even know if her rescuer is human or alien until he takes off the helmet to reveal a quintessentially human head, although the eyes are slightly bigger and the nose is smaller than she remembers.

While the others sleep on the ship, secure and floating in their warm chambers, he comes to her and asks to hear her stories. She indulges him and soaks in his handsome, strong face and youthful enthusiasm. He cannot conceive of a time on Earth. He looks through the porthole at the blue and grey stone and asks her over and over again to explain what it was like. She talks of cars and shopping malls, of airplanes and people who never knew space travel. He laughs at her description of rudimentary computers and antiquated space travel.

She cannot bring herself to ask what year it is and how long she was waiting. But as she wanders the ship when he sleeps in his chamber, she marvels over materials that she cannot name and computers who are no doubt smarter than she ever was.

She remembers the first question that she asked the one whom she found and wonders why her rescuer hasn't asked her the same question. The next time he comes into the cargo bay while the others still sleep in their chambers, she asks him how much he knows about the museum and its inhabitants. He smiles and says that the computers remember history while humans focus on problem-solving. His problem had been to devise a way to get to Earth and to identify high-value targets. 

She asks him about the solar system where humans now live, but she has no frame of reference. She thinks back to the one she found and how terribly out-of-synch and alone he must have felt on the boat that carried them across the ocean. She tries not to think too much.

The ship lands, and he takes her to a place that he calls a research and knowledge center. It's shiny and bright with a smell of antiseptic. His team want to digitize her, to peel off her silken rags and probe all her secrets, but he insists that her value is as a whole genuine artifact, one of the last vestiges of ancient Earth. She lies on a table, pretending to be dead, waiting only for the off-hours when she can talk to him, touch him, laugh with him.

The team uploads the photos of the sarcophagus, and the computers whir for several days, matching and sorting and collating data, reaching back into the past of all known human history to read the ancient message on the tomb.

His civilization does not know musical instruments or leisure time. All of their pursuits are hard work, solving problems, and bettering themselves. The computers store music as digital files that can be played, although the sound is sometimes tinny or distorted. He does not know how to dance, so she teaches him. 

They waltz in small, boxy steps to “The Blue Danube” and they laugh at his clumsiness. She tells him how her father taught her to dance, her small dainty feet perched on top of his shiny leather shoes. She remembers the feeling of twirling and floating, of feeling simultaneously weightless and secured to something stronger than herself.

They are dancing when the computer chirps its answer into the late night in the research center. The metallic voice pings through the room, the story of her life that she longed to forget.

“Is this true? Are you cursed?” he asks, hurt puckering the corners of his lips. Some tiny, human part of her wants to warn him, but the only words her mouth can form are “I think that I am cured.”

“But is what the computer says true?” he asks, refusing to be distracted. 

Her laugh is airy and light. “You are the most advanced civilization in the history of the universe. Do you really believe in a curse?”

“I believe you are cured,” he says, as his hand brushes brittle hair off her face and traces the bone of her cheek. She kisses him and remembers their first kiss on the ship. Right after the kiss, he asked her why museums had columns and rare marble floors. She murmured something about an invitation and hoped he'd forget the question, thinking of all that she'd like to forget.


End file.
